This paper argues that, with modification, Rawls's social contract theory can produce principles of distributive justice applying to the severely disabled. It is a response to critics who claim that Rawls's assumption that the parties in the original position represent fully cooperating citizens excludes the disabled from the social contract. I propose that this idealizing assumption should be dropped at the constitutional stage of the contract where the parties decide on a social minimum. Knowing that they might not be fully (...) capable of social cooperation, the parties will choose a social minimum that is as high and comprehensive as is compatible with the difference principle. This will ensure that the disabled have an adequate income. (shrink)

There are two general classes of social conventions: conventions of coordination, and conventions of partial conflict. In coordination problems, the interests of the agents coincide, while in partial conflict problems, some agents stand to gain only if other agents unilaterally make certain sacrifices. Lewis' (1969) pathbreaking analysis of convention in terms of game theory focuses on coordination problems, and cannot accommodate partial conflict problems. In this paper, I propose a new game-theoretic definition of convention which generalizes previous game-theoretic definitions (Lewis (...) 1969, Vanderschraaf 1995), and which can be used to characterize norms of justice in partial conflict situations. I argue that the key structural property necessary for a social arrangement to be a convention is that it be conditionally self-enforcing, in the sense that: (i) each agent has a decisive reason to follow her end of the arrangement given that she expects all to do likewise, (ii) given a different set of expectations, some agents would have had a decisive reason to deviate, and (iii) these facts are common knowledge. This leads to a definition of convention as a strict correlated equilibrium (Aumann 1974) together with appropriate common knowledge conditions. Examples are given in which it is shown how this more general account of convention can be used to analyze norms of justice as well as coordination problems. It is only a general sense of common interest; which sense all the members of the society express to one another, and which induces them to regulate their conduct by certain rules. I observe, that it will be for my interest to leave another in the possession of his goods, provided he will act in the same manner with regard to me. He is sensible of a like interest in the regulation of his conduct. When this common sense of interest is mutually express'd, and is known to both, it produces a suitable resolution and behavior. And this may properly be call'd a convention or agreement betwixt us,.. (shrink)

Because contractarians see justice as mutual advantage, they hold that justice can be rationally grounded only when each can expect to gain from it. John Rawls seems to avoid this feature of contractarianism by fashioning the parties to the contract as Kantian agents whose personhood grounds their claims to justice. But Rawls also endorses the Humean idea that justice applies only if people are equal in ability. It would seem to follow from this idea that dependent persons (such as the (...) disabled) lack claims of justice. It appears, then, that the Kantian and Humean themes in Rawls conflict. I present a reading of Rawls that resolves this tension between the Kantian and Humean themes. The first theme, I argue, allows Rawls to maintain that persons as such are owed justice regardless of their ability to engage in social cooperation. The second theme, I argue, allows him to retain Hume's connection between justice and reciprocity, but confines the reciprocity condition to relations among nondependents. I conclude that Rawls's approach permits him to rebut recent criticisms leveled by disability theorists and others who claim that his theory excludes dependents. (shrink)

The central philosophical task posed by conventions is to analyze what they are and how they differ from mere regularities of action and cognition. Subsidiary questions include: How do conventions arise? How are they sustained? How do we select between alternative conventions? Why should one conform to convention? What social good, if any, do conventions serve? How does convention relate to such notions as rule, norm, custom, practice, institution, and social contract? Apart from its intrinsic interest, convention is important because (...) philosophers frequently invoke it when discussing other topics. A favorite philosophical gambit is to argue that, perhaps despite appearances to the contrary, some phenomenon ultimately results from convention. Notable candidates include: property, government, justice, law, morality, linguistic meaning, necessity, ontology, mathematics, and logic. (shrink)

This paper develops an interpretation of Hume’s accounts of the obligation and value of justice. According to my interpretation, Hume takes the obligation of justice to depend (in part) on the conventions that define the rules of justice realizing a distinctive form of value, which I call functional value. Properly understanding Hume’s accounts, I argue, requires revisionary understandings of his accounts of both the set of things susceptible to fundamental moral evaluation and his view of the nature of utility.

Contractualism is one of the most promising ‘centers of gravity’ in business ethics. In this guest editorial we provide a concise roadmap to the field, sketching contractualism’s historic and disciplinary antecedents, the basic argumentative structure of the contract model, and its boundary conditions. We also sketch two main dimensions along which contributions to the contractualist tradition can be positioned. The first dimension entails positive versus normative theorizing – does a given contribution analyze the world as it is or how it (...) ought to be? The second dimension involves four different levels of analysis that are commonly employed in contractualist business ethics: the nano, micro, meso, and macro levels. We then proceed to position the articles comprising this special issue along these two dimensions. (shrink)

Hume is rightly credited with giving a brilliant, and perhaps the best, account of justice as convention. Hume's importance as a forerunner of modern economics has also long been recognized. However, most of Hume's readers have not fully appreciated how closely Hume's analysis of convention foreshadows a particular branch of economic theory, namely, game theory. Starting with the work of Barry, Runciman and Sen and Lewis, there has been a flowering of literature on the informal game-theoretic insights to be found (...) in classics of political philosophy such as Hobbes, Locke, Hume and Rousseau. A number of authors in this tradition, including Lewis, Gauthier, Mackie, and Postema, have identified passages in Hume which they interpret as giving informal examples of specific games. Yet, unlike his predecessors, Hobbes and Locke, Hume does much more than present examples which have a game-theoretic structure. In his account of convention, Hume gives general conditions which characterize the resolution of social interaction problems, and in the examples he uses to illustrate this account, Hume outlines several different methods by which agents can arrive at such a resolution. Hume's general account of convention and his explanations of the origins of particular conventions together constitute a theory of strategic interaction, which is precisely what game theory aspires to be. (shrink)

Hume’s account of the scope of justice, many think, is implausibly narrow, apply- ing almost exclusively to respect for property rights. Such a view would indeed be highly objectionable because it would leave out of the scope of justice altogether requirements to keep our promises, obey the law, and refrain from threats and violence (among many others). I argue that Hume’s theory of justice, properly understood, avoids this objection. And seeing how is instructive because once we understand his account correctly, (...) we can appreciate its resources for offering attractive explanations of why a number of diverse phenomena fall within the scope of justice. Overcoming this challenge is a major step- ping stone on the way to seeing Hume’s theory of justice as a genuine competitor with the other dominant theories of justice in the philosophical literature. (shrink)

Hume’s examination of the conventions of property, trade, and contract addresses the moral foundations that make business possible. In this light, Hume’s theory of justice is also a foundational work in business ethics. In Hume’s analysis of these conventions, both philosophers and game theorists have correctly identified “proto” game-theoretic elements. One of the few attempts to offer a Humean theory of business ethics rests on this game-theoretic interpretation of Hume’s argument. This article argues that game-theoretic reasoning is only one part (...) of a Humean business ethics and this can be shown by further analyzing Hume’s theory of justice. As we examine his theory, it becomes clear that Hume is not trying to show how it is always rational to respect the rules of business. Hume is not engaging in, or attempting, a reconciliation project and neither is a Humean business ethics. The final section of the article is a brief Humean analysis of the effectiveness of codes of ethics. The purpose of this section is not to decide the issue but to show how a Humean approach is both useful, relevant, and involves more than reconciling rationality and morality. (shrink)

David Hume’s position on religion is, broadly speaking, “politic”: instrumental and consequentialist. Religions should be tolerated or not according to their effects on political peace and order. Such theories of toleration are often rejected as immoral or unstable. The reading provided here responds by reading Hume’s position as one of radically indirect consequentialism. While religious policy should serve consequentialist ends, making direct reference to those ends merely gives free reign to religious-political bigotry and faction. Toleration, like Hume’s other “artificial virtues” (...) (justice, fidelity to promises, allegiance to government), is a universally useful response to our universal partiality—as established uniformity, however tempting, is not. This implies that toleration can progress through political learning, becoming broader and more constitutionally established over time. A sophisticated Humean approach thus shares the stability and normative attractiveness of respect- or rights-based arguments while responding more acutely and flexibly to problems the former often slights: antinomian religious extremism; underdefined political agency; and internationalized, politicized religious movements. (shrink)

There are two discourses that are used in connection with the provision of good healthcare: a rights discourse and a beneficial design discourse. Although the logical force of these two discourses overlaps, they have distinct and incompatible implications for practical reasoning about health policy. The language of rights can be interpreted as the ground of a well-designed healthcare system stressing the values of equality and inclusion, but it has less application when dealing with questions of cost-effectiveness. This difference reflects the (...) distinction between the deontological status of rights claims and a teleological approach presupposed in the language of beneficial design. However, the value of the separateness of persons contained in the discourse of rights can impose constraints on the adoption of a simple maximizing principle when thinking about the allocation of healthcare resources within a social contract for health. Throughout these issues are discussed by reference to the work of Peter Jones. (shrink)

Conventionalism as a distinct approach to the social contract received significant attention in the game-theoretic literature on social contract theory. Peter Vanderschraaf’s sophisticated and innovative theory of conventional justice represents the most recent contribution to this tradition and, in many ways, can be viewed as a culmination of this tradition. In this article, I focus primarily on Vanderschraaf’s defense of the egalitarian bargaining solution as a principle of justice. I argue that one particular formal feature of this bargaining solution, the (...) baseline consistency requirement, may stand in tension with other features of conventionalism as an approach to the social contract and limit the scope of Vanderschraaf’s theory to societies in which de facto an egalitarian sense of justice evolves. It limits the scope of Vanderschraaf’s theory in the face of moral diversity. A similar limitation applies to Vanderschraaf’s theory of democratic political authority. Despite these minor limitations, Vanderschraaf’s theory can only be seen as a major success and significant contribution to social contract theory. (shrink)

Hume’s theory of justice is commonly regarded by contemporary theorists of justice as a theory of justice as mutual advantage. It is thus widely thought to manifest all the unattractive features of such theories: in particular, it is thought to endorse the exclusion of people with serious mental or physical disabilities from the scope and protection of justice and to justify the European expropriation of the lands of defenceless aboriginal people. I argue that this reading of Hume is mistaken. Mutual (...) advantage is only part of Hume’s theory, the part that explains the origins of the institutions of justice in a general sense (property and promise keeping), and it is bracketed off from those parts of Hume’s theory that explain who is included within the scope of justice, how much each receives, and why and to whom we have a duty to be just. The interpretation of Hume’s theory as a theory of justice as mutual advantage not only fails to convey Hume’s complex purposes, but it portrays Hume’s theory of justice as the kind of theory he was most concerned to refute. (shrink)

I resolve a previously unnoticed anomaly in the analysis of collective action problems. Some political theorists apply game theory to analyze the paradox of anarchy: War is apparently inevitable in anarchy even though all warring parties prefer peace over war. Others apply tipping threshold analysis to resolve the paradox of revolution: Joining a revolution is apparently always irrational even when an overwhelming majority of the population wish to replace their regime. The usual game theoretic analysis of anarchy yields the conclusion (...) that the suboptimal equilibrium of war is inevitable. The usual tipping threshold analysis of revolution yields the conclusion that the optimal equilibrium of successful revolution is possible. Yet structurally the collective action problems of anarchy and potential revolution are much the same. This suggests that tipping threshold analysis and game theory are incompatible methodologies, despite their widespread use in the social sciences. I argue that there is no real tension between game theory and tipping threshold analysis, even though these methodologies have developed largely independently of each other. I propose a Variable Belief Threshold model of collective action that combines elements of game theory and tipping threshold analysis. I show by example that one can use this kind of hybrid model to give compatible explanations of conflict in anarchy and successful revolution.1. Introduction2. Two Classic Problems, and Two Popular Analyses2.1. The paradox of anarchy2.2. The paradox of revolution3. Restating the Puzzle4. Evaluating the Prisoners’ Dilemma and S-Curve Models5. The Variable Belief Threshold ModelExample 5.1. A population of moderates with independent deviationsExample 5.2 A heterogeneous population with independent deviationsExample 5.3 A heterogeneous population with coordinated deviations6. ConclusionAppendix: Computer Simulations. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ: Cet article se propose de montrer comment la critique de la théorie contractualiste opérée par David Hume est la conséquence politique de son analyse de la causalité. Hume rejette le contractualisme avant tout pour des raisons méthodologiques : une explication par les causes finales n’est jamais une explication satisfaisante. Or, le contractualisme applique au domaine politique l’argument du desseinprésenté dans les Dialogues sur la religion naturelle. La genèse du politique déployée dans le Traité de la nature humaine doit alors (...) être envisagée comme l’application particulière du seul mode d’explication pertinent des phénomènes, l’histoire naturelle, où la sympathie configure et reconfigure, de manière immanente, la société. À la causalité finale, il faut substituer la causalité efficiente. La théorie politique de Hume dans ses deux versants, négatif et positif, est indissociable de son épistémologie.ABSTRACT: This article proposes to show how David Hume’s critique of contractualism is the political consequence of his analysis of causality. Hume rejects contractualism mainly for methodological reasons: explanations based on final causes are never satisfying. Therefore, contractualism applies to the political sphere the argument from design presented in the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion. The genesis of politics unfolded in A Treatise of Human Nature must be seen as a particular application of the only pertinent way of explaining phenomena, i. e., natural history, in which sympathy immanently configures and reconfigures society. The final cause must be replaced by the efficient cause. Hume’s political theory-either positive or negative-and epistemology cannot be dissociated. (shrink)

Moral beliefs and attitudes may vary to great extent across different societies. Even within the same society, the prevailing moral beliefs and attitudes may vary throughout the history of this society. The moral beliefs and attitudes that prevail in a given society, at a given time, constitute the “positive morality” of this society. But can we morally assess the “positive morality”? In this paper I present reasons so as to give this question an affirmative answer. I argue that the moral (...) assessment of the “positive morality” must resort to the general principles of “critical morality”. The conception of “critical morality” that I defend in this paper resumes some aspects of David Hume’s moral philosophy. In the last section of this paper I also argue that formative works of art, such as novels, feature films, and documentary films may participate in the process of rational deliberation required by “critical morality”. (shrink)

The resilience of utilitarian ethics in the face of unremitting criticism can be explained in part by its use of various strategies of indirect utilitarianism. The success of these strategies throws up a distinctive problem: how can one measure the utility of moral rules, large-scale social institutions or character traits distinctive of virtues? Reading Hume as a utilitarian of sorts in his treatment of justice, I explain his conservative endorsement of entrenched social practices as a consequence of his broadly functionalist (...) approach. I claim that this account has enough merit to ground conservativism in ethics as a satisfactory default position. Projects for reform rather than established institutions are the proper object of utilitarian assessment, thus finessing the problem of measurement I opened up initially. (shrink)

How much of the “science of man” that Hume goes on to develop is a recapitulation of the work of the other British philosophers and how much is new? When is Hume borrowing the insights of those who came before and when is he innovating? It is difficult to answer these questions, and not just because the rules of attribution in the eighteenth century were looser than in ours. For at times the verve with which Hume writes can lead one (...) to think that he is in the grip of a new discovery when he is in fact recounting the ideas of a predecessor. And at other times Hume puts others’ ideas to work in a manner that they themselves never considered or would have actively opposed. (shrink)

Scholars have long posited justice as a core value of public relations. However, that value has been criticized as being improbably idealistic. Philosopher David Hume locates the origins of justice within the need for property and the reliable exchange of resources. Hume thus embeds the origins of justice within a staple of public relations theory: resource dependency theory. Additionally, Hume believes a respect for justice to be the foundation of a positive reputation. This grounding of the quest for justice in (...) resource dependency and reputation helps establish a realistic basis for accepting justice as a core value of public relations. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Joseph de Maistre’s Civilization and its DiscontentsGraeme GarrardIn his study of Sigmund Freud’s social and political thought Paul Roazen claims that Freud was the first to depict the human psyche as torn between two fundamentally antithetical tendencies:The notion of a human nature in conflict with itself, disrupted by the opposition of social and asocial inclinations, the view that the social self develops from an asocial nucleus but that the (...) social trends are also dynamic and emotional in nature, and finally the conception that reason’s control can be extended by a detailed knowledge of the repressed asocial tendencies—all this was not known before Freud. 1Although Freud is undoubtedly the most famous modern exponent of this conception of human nature at war with itself, he was by no means its first, let alone only, proponent. Kant, for example, wrote of the “unsocial sociability of men” over a century earlier. 2 An even more unlikely precursor of this basic assumption of Freudian social psychology is the Catholic reactionary Joseph de Maistre (1753–1821). The social theory elaborated by this arch-paladin of throne and altar—who was, quite literally, plus royalist que le roi, plus catholique que le Pape—is strikingly similar to that expressed by Freud in his famous essay Civilization and Its Discontents (1929). 3 [End Page 429]Both conceived of the individual as “a being both social and evil,” 4 perpetually struggling to prevent the innate aggressiveness of the species from plunging society into a Hobbesian war of all against all. That is why Freud insisted that it “has to use its utmost efforts in order to set limits to man’s aggressive instincts,” 5 a view advanced over a century earlier by Maistre. Events in Europe after 1789 led many conservatives such as Maistre, as events after 1914 would lead Freud, to reject the common Enlightenment view of human beings as naturally sociable and of social life as a reflection of the spontaneous harmony of a natural world governed by laws established by God and discoverable by reason. In Maistre’s view, social and political life are better understood as the artificial and fundamentally precarious imposition of order on the violent flux of nature. Anticipating Freud, he asserts that individuals, if left to their own devices in society, would soon be plunged into a state of social warfare identical to that which Hobbes had attributed to the state of nature. His particular brand of extreme conservative thought derives its social and political authoritarianism from these deeply pessimistic social assumptions, which leave him with more in common (on this subject) with Freud than with either the Enlightenment or fellow conservatives such as Edmund Burke.Homo Homini LupusThe pessimistic, even tragic, argument of Civilization and Its Discontents is that human beings are driven by extremely powerful instincts, the full satisfaction of which is incompatible with social life. According to Freud, the “cultural frustration” that ensues from this incompatibility “dominates the large field of social relationships between human beings. As we already know, it is the cause of the hostility against which all civilizations has to struggle.” 6 Unhappiness, understood as the non-satisfaction of these basic libidinal urges, is therefore a necessary part of human association. “One feels inclined to say that the intention that man should be ‘happy,’” Freud writes pessimistically, “is not included in the plan of ‘Creation.’” 7Freud also argues that, in addition to these basically erotic instincts, there is a “constitutional inclination in human beings to be aggressive towards one another,” 8 which “constitutes the greatest impediment to civilization.” 9 [End Page 430] This ineliminable tendency accounts for Freud’s Hobbesian view of the precariousness of civilization: 10[M]en are not gentle creatures who want to be loved, and who at the most can defend themselves if they are attacked; they are, on the contrary, creatures among whose instinctual endowments is to be reckoned a powerful share of aggressiveness. As a result, their neighbour is for them not only a potential helper or sexual object, but also someone who tempts them to satisfy their aggressiveness on him, to exploit his capacity for work without compensation, to... (shrink)

The tendency to see English utilitarianism as a fundamentally different enterprise from that of the so-called Scottish Enlightenment is mistaken. One must read Hume backwards, which, despite Hume’s own advice, is rarely done by Hume scholars. In doing so, one more fully appreciates the importance of utility to Hume, and Bentham’s subsequent employment of Hume’s ideas.

Having explained the moral approbation attending merit or virtue, there remains nothing but briefly to consider our interested obligation to it, and to inquire whether every man, who has any regard to his own happiness and welfare, will not best find his account in the practice of every moral duty. [W]hat theory of morals can ever serve any useful purpose, unless it can show, by a particular detail, that all the duties which it recommends, are also the true interest of (...) each individual? (shrink)

En este trabajo me voy a centrar en el análisis de la poco conocida crítica de la teoría de las virtudes de David Hume llevada a cabo por el padre del Utilitarismo clásico, Jeremy Bentham. Este trabajo defiende que la perspectiva humeana en esa teoría, basada en la distinción primordial entre virtudes naturales y artificiales, no sólo es compatible con el utilitarismo clásico, a pesar de las críticas de Jeremy Bentham, sino que puede contribuir a mejorarlo y desarrollarlo por medio (...) de la sólida, compleja y plural visión de la moralidad que propone. (shrink)

Abstract Differing interpretations of the political thought of David Hume have tended to emphasize either conservative, gradualist elements similar to Burke or rationalist aspects similar to Hobbes. The concept of indirect utility as used by Hume reconciles these two approaches. Indirect utility is best illustrated by Hume's conception of justice, in contrast to his conception of benevolence, which yields direct benefits. This understanding of Hume's consequentialism also helps underscore certain egalitarian aspects of Hume's thought.

We share our world with many people who ignore the principles of justice and who regularly take advantage of others by breaching trust or breaking agreements. This dissertation is about the irrationality of the actions of these covenant-breakers. A covenant-breaker typically believes that unjust behavior is to his advantage and that only a fool would act in any other way. Would it not be disturbing if this were true? My central claim will be that adherence to the precepts of justice (...) is a rational strategy for a self-interested actor. I intend to demonstrate that con men and covenant-breakers do not act rationally when violating an agreement. I will trace the concept of justice as it evolves through philosophical history and show that, while the concept of justice changes as the underlying concept of human nature and psychology changes, the argument in favor of the rationality of just behavior remains coherent throughout. Each historical interpretation will advance some form of the claim that the consistent observance of cooperative agreements is a rational strategy, and at each point an interlocutor will object. I will show that these interlocutors are mistaken. My motivating goal is to show that justice, understood as the consistent observance of cooperative agreements, is rational. I want to respond to the clandestine cheaters and other skeptics who believe that just behavior is for suckers, because, if the skeptics are right, and justice is indeed irrational, then those among us who are acting in a just manner are paying an unnecessary cost. (shrink)

Starting in the mid-seventies down through 1991, John Rawls made Kant the centerpiece of his undergraduate ethics course. Class notes prepared and updated by Rawls or by his assistants were made available privately to students. Barbara Herman has edited and published those notes and added two lectures on Hegel based on Rawls’ personal notes. The result is quite suitable for use as a textbook on Kant’s ethics.